My story

It all happened at Easter 2020 when I took my son mountain biking. All of a sudden I had an almighty headache which made me stop and push my bike to the ground. Nevertheless I continued to deliver the subscriptions to the rest of Masham while the country was under the 1st COVID lockdown. I returned home and went to bed for a month and lost two and a half stone in weight. Other symptoms included thunder clap headaches, sweats, pins and needles, a very stiff neck, zig zags in front of my eyes.

Anyway, I had six ‘events’ over a month, which included various visits to my local GP and A&E where their diagnosis was either ‘tension’ or ‘migraine’ headaches, but I had not had any of these in my whole life! The visits to A&E consisted of numerous neurological tests which concluded that there was nothing wrong except for either ‘tension’ or ‘migraine’ headaches!

In the meantime, I could not sit up, had trouble walking unaided and at one stage I just wanted to go to sleep, and my mum, who was sat at my bedside, mentioned that I looked very ill and withdrawn. It was only three weeks into the ‘events’ and my GP mentioned that I should have a CT / MRI Scan. This scan showed that I had a ruptured 13mm brain aneurysm which had caused a grade One Subarachnoid Haemorrhage. At the same time the MRI scan had shown a unruptured 6mm brain aneurysm.

I was rushed to my local hospital where they successfully coiled the ruptured 13mm brain aneurysm which had 100% occluded. Later the same year I had an unsuccessful operation on the unruptured 6mm brain aneurysm, but later in the same year and at the same hospital, had an operation to successfully coil it which was also 100% occluded.

The most resent scan had discovered that the neck had grown 1mm, due to the coils settling down. Now it’s nearly three years since the events and I have a scan in summer 2023 and this should be my last scan.

The point that I would like to stress is that there is no incentive for the NHS to undertake CT / MRI scans at the onset of either a ‘tension’ or ‘migraine’ headaches, if the patient has any of the other symptoms described above as well then there should be no doute that a scan should be carried out, how may lives would be saved if this was the case?

My lifestyle choices did not do me any favours, I drank 3 to 4 cans a night for several years, I had uncontrolled high blood pressure for 10 years! Who to say that this did not cause it? But my grandad died of a Subarachnoid Haemorrhage where he did not know anyone after the first event and then days after he sadly passed away.

I am back to work full time, I have daily headaches, ringing in my ears and I get very sleepy at 10pm, but these are nothing compared to what could  have happened.